Well, I finally did it!…Nope, I still ended up gathering a lot of videos. Most of these are reels, but it still makes for quite an ample list entertaining material. It’s amazing, sometimes…it really is. On that note…Ikimashou!
Actress Kiki Sukezane has been around for about four years and she now has a few credits in television and film after traveling back and forth between Japan and the States. Of course, with the trade she pursues comes with quite a bit of training in screenfighting and action, even working on her craft for a while with Gun Caliber star/director, filmmaker Bueno who helped her put a demo reel together late last year. Take a look!
Actress and stuntwoman Vera Lam has only been doing stuntwork for about a year and she’s already gained some momentum with quite a few previous AND upcoming TV credits. Her training with New York City-based screenfighting facility, Cinematic Fight Studio continues to serve its purpose to this day, so I hope to see plenty more from Ms. Lam as the year rolls on. In the meantime, here’s her reel as well!
Aspiring stuntwoman Lee Wei-Hsin now manages Apex Martial Arts Academy in Toronto after seventeen years of immersing herself in Wushu and competing nationally until 2011. She’s also collaborated with a handful of prominent up and coming stunt performers I’ve followed in the last few years and she shows a lot of promise, so this, on top of being a genuine martial artist truly makes her an example to follow for any actress looking to play action roles. I, for one, certainly hope Ms. Lee gets her day.
In the meantime, here’s her new reel as well!
It was back in 2013 when I first learned of Hit Girl and Fist Of The Dragon co-star, actress Juju Chan, and she’s come quite far from her years at NYU Tisch prior to her pageant days in 2009. Since then, her growing resume in film and television, book and accolades in competitive and demonstrative martial arts pretty much speak for themselves, and she’s not resting on her laurels either. Still a working actress to date, you will find her back on the big screen once again in martial arts directorial master Yuen Woo-Ping’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend, this August.
Until then, keep your eyes peeled for more info following her latest reel which is now up on her IMDb page. (H/T: Danny Shamon)
Stuntwoman PeiPei Yuan is someone whose work I’ve enjoyed covering in the past two years. Needless to say, I still have my eye on her, because she’s been busy on both sides of the camera, and now she’s got two newly edited action reels out, including one with tons more swordplay action, as well as some camerawork on one of the latest videos from indie filmmaker Shaun Charney. In addition, she currently has a clip available from her scene as a deadly assassin in an upcoming buddy cop webseries titled Kode Orange: Los Angeles, from director Nancy Criss, with awesome fight choreography by Vonzell Carter. You can catch its trailer beneath the other videos along with its following clip!
…of course, I also had to share Charney‘s more recent video other than the one mentioned above. I’ve been following his work for a while now it’s always refreshing to see him put out new content, and so here he is in his second video of the year performing a solo array of martial arts forms between several costumes and editing changes.
I look back at the last couple of years and I can’t help but wonder “What could have been?..”, particularly in the wake of not ever seeing action star Johnny Tri Nguyen‘s crime pic, Cho Lon. It’s probably something that I’ll never get over while I stubbornly wait for its release, which is also unlikely at this point.
Hell, I don’t see how anyone could watch a leaked unfinished product and still have the mind to review it. I admit, I even tried to look at it on YouTube and I couldn’t. After the first few minutes, I was done as it really needed those post-production edits badly. So, to the jerk that leaked it…well, you certainly didn’t do me any favors.
At any rate, here’s some of that lost movie footage in Nguyen‘s reel from last year and you can check out a shorter version of the reel by clicking here as well.
Johnny, wherever you are, don’t stop this.
Capoeira purveyor and aspiring stuntman and Darin Hicks already has a few credits of his own on his IMDb page in addition to training with his fellow members at Georgia-based Dragon Spirit Productions which I started discussing on my site back in 2013. His reel is up, so I take it as a sign that he’s on to something this year, so I hope to catch onto it as soon as possible.
Eight year stunt veteran Mykola Galagan, hailing all the way from Ukraine, has a brand new reel out as well to kick off 2015. In it, you will also see footage from director Alexey Shaparev’s internationally produced cerebral detective thriller, The Price Of Freedom which centers on the story of a young woman who suffers from Stockholm Syndrome, caught at the center of a 20-year feud between her begrudged kidnapper and her father, a rich tycoon whose company specializes in extracting African diamonds.
The project, a feature length/serial work from Ukraine-based Good Morning films completed last year before being presented at the 10th CentEast Market in Warsaw during the latter of the 30th Warsaw Film Festival back in October. As of then, a trailer has been made available which you can also check out just above Galagan‘s reel.
The next reel comes courtesy of Ulrik Bruchholz who, on top of writing and directing films is also an accomplished stuntman. The last we heard from him was a shortfilm he put together in the form of his stellar action short, Hard Boiled Cop with actor Mathis Lamdwehr which made quite a splash online last year, so I’m eager to see what he puts out in 2015. In the meantime, his latest reel is online featuring our multifaceted action man taking an assortment of blows and throws alike. Do watch!
If you caught the 12/29/14 Hit List, you might have caught the most recent trailer for the incomplete Holiday action comedy short, Jingle Bell Rocked from Canadian martial arts stunt team, Eclipse Stunts. Unfortunately, post production fell short due to scheduling among crew members and it was never completed, but now we’ve been granted a rough glimpse into the hard-hitting three-on-one fight finale which you can check out below!
The next video comes from another independent studio called Studio Shiners where filmmaker Taj L. Cooper has a new anime-inspired short now available online titled Aya’s Mirage. Actress Ishida Sachiko stars and also came up with this project and I love that she’s stretching her creative muscles on top of her screenfighting. It’s a nice little concept that plays in different realms and delivers somewhat of a confusing, rushed finish, but it goes to show that some ideas would be nice to expand on and evolve. Terry Taneie, best known for working on the Kung Fu Femmes series, directs the action.
This next one hails from independent filmmaker Luis Correa (or Luis KO), based in Argentina with twenty years of training in multiple styles of martial arts prior to finally dabbling into the world of stunts and film with his own indie banner, The DiosGuerrero. Correa‘s latest short is called Post, a short story about two Olympic martial arts competitors who decide to take their grudge away from the judges in a no holds barred street brawl. Principle performances are by Emax Ayala and Alex Fun with Correa‘s own choreography.
This segment gets a little musical with the next three videos: The first is a throwback to 2013 featuring Roy Chen in a music video titled Shadow Boxing, performed by Zion I. A little backstory: The indie action video I ever saw was incidentally the first I would see Chen in, a little fight compilation with members of Zero Gravity titled Battle Of The Stunt Monkies. I hadn’t really seen him in anything since then until I found the music video while lurking on Chen‘s profile as I awaited his response to my request which he eventually accepted. So, I figured I’d take the opportunity now to share it, particularly in lieu of his upcoming appearance in at least a few more projects later this year. It’s hip hop enfused with old school kung fu tropes, which is always fun.
The other is a newly-released song by Argentinian composer Nicolás Iaconis IV titled Shaolin. It’s an awesome little piece which last three minutes and had me imagining some sort of epic shaolin kung fu brawl in my head which was fun too; Iaconis has been working in film composition since 2007 and has several credits to his name, including an upcoming independent project with actor Bernardo Iaconis titled El Rastreador(The Tracker), which is currently in post and has a teaser with some footage as of 2013.
Watch all three videos below!
Truly Indie Studios’s own actor, stunt coordinator and filmmaker Shaun Piccinino(The Lackey, Phase Two) has done some amazing work in recent years, notably applying his style of superheroic fight design for Bat In The Sun’s own Machinina series, Super Powered Beat Down with producer and director Aaron Schoenke. Since then, the two, in the good company of their respective banners, have begun collaborating on a project of their own with a trailer now online for the new upcoming action-packed webseries, Six Feet Down Under, centered on an the story of Mick, an assassin now fighting for his life when his employer’s son betrays him and makes him a target.
Martial arts guru and co-writer Steve Pisa co-directs with Piccinino, with The Lackey co-star, series lead actor Guy Grundy also directing.
U.K. based independent film company, Light Films Ltd. made some significant progress in the months since attempting to crowdfund Wasteland helmer Tom Wadlow‘s latest survival thriller, Rat Catcher. Nowadays the film is gearing up for something even bigger to befit its initial narrative and thankfully, Wadlow has taken to a new announcement video to discuss just a little bit of what that means, in addition to some cool action footage from the project featuring SG Action stunt group’s own Jim Key, and much more!
…and we know that the boys over at Just Kidding Films WANT to do parkour just like Ben Jenkin can…
…but can Ryan Higa do parkour?
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